This past Thursday, in an attempt to try to get used to riding with the rack and panniers, I loaded up the bike and bags with some old towels and a couple bricks in each side. What a shock when I tried to load it in to the truck...that thing must have weighed a ton. Ok, it actually only weighed 49lbs 10oz according to my scale, but you get my point.
After getting to the lake and immediately upon heading out it dawned on me that this wasn’t my normal ride. In addition to trying to get used to riding with gears, having the weight being all on the back of the bike made for a very weird handling ride.
It’s funny that everyone thinks riding a single speed is so much harder than a geared bike. And while I totally want to nurture the image of being a bad-ass, it’s really not true. There’s no doubt that it’s different and that in the beginning it’s harder, but once you’ve gotten used to it, it’s not necessarily harder...what’s hard is going from a rigid single speed that weighs about 22lbs to a geared bike weighing almost 50lbs.
The temptation when you come to a hill to just downshift and spin up it is hard to ignore. Of course every time someone passed me, it drove me nuts. I'm usually up front with the fast guys...
The toughest issues to deal with were both a result of where the weight was located, on the back of the bike. The first was the way, when heading into downhill corners, the bike wanted to push through them. It made braking and steering more challenging than I expected.
The other was that in addition to the extra weight, when going uphill the front end was very light forcing me to lean way forward in order to keep the front end down.
I might need to switch out the spacers from 100mm to 80mm...
It wasn’t until about the half way point that I figured out how to spin smoothly with the front suspension and all the weight on the back. Once I got this, I was able to stand up and ride and eventually to keep up with the front group. Of course by the time we finished the loop, my legs were pretty well thrashed and although I had thought about tossing out the bricks at the halfway point, I didn’t and was able to finish the ride.
The goal when I started was to find out what to expect and this was accomplished. I now have a better understanding of what this it’s going to be like to ride the bike fully loaded. Granted I only rode 13 miles instead of the 25-35 we’ll be doing every day and it was a sea level instead of at 9000+, but as long as I can manage to actually breathe I should be just fine....9 days and counting....
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